We suggest that the investigation of multiple gene polymorphisms, versus single genes, could contribute to a better understanding of the effect of susceptibility genes on cancer risk.

Oxidative stress seems to play a major role in the pathogenesis of neurodegeneration. In Parkinson's disease (PD) patients, the dopaminergic neurons are subjected to oxidative stress resulting from reduced levels of antioxidant defenses such as glutathione and high amount of intracellular iron. Levodopa (LD) is widely used for the symptomatic treatment of PD, but its role in oxidative damage control is still unclear. The aim of this study was to analyze the presence of DNA damage in peripheral blood lymphocytes (PBL) of PD patients, during a washout and a controlled LD dosage and to evaluate the oxidative damage fluctuation after LD intake. The standard and the Fpg-modified version of Comet assay were applied in analyzing DNA damage in PBL from blood samples of nine PD patients and nine matched controls. Due to the limited number of patients we cannot reach definite conclusions even if our data confirm the accumulation of DNA lesions in PD patients; these lesions decrease after LD intake.

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Breast cancer (BC) is the most common type of malignancy in female patients and radio-treatment is the conventional therapy even if a great number of studies reported that enhanced sensitivity to ionizing radiation as measured as chromosome effects is present in a significant proportion of cancer patients, including breast cancer ones. In this study we analysed whether peripheral blood lymphocytes from sporadic BC patients and healthy subjects showed a different sensitivity to ionizing radiation and whether cytogenetic radiosensitivity may serve as a breast cancer risk biomarker. To test this hypothesis, the in vitro radiation sensitivity was measured by using both G(0) and G(2) chromosome radiosensitivity assays, on 46 subjects (23 BC patients and 23 healthy subjects). Results show that cancer patients are more radiosensitive than healthy controls and that G(2) assay could be more appropriate to define the individual radiosensitivity if compared to G(0) assay.